Infected Connection

by A. Ashley Straker

While investigating a fault plaguing a new model of smartphone, stressed technician Simon Parfitt makes a disturbing discovery. Incubating inside the batteries are spider-like creatures, and the phenomenon seems to be spreading.

But when Simon tries to alert the authorities, people start trying to kill him.

As paranoia sets in, Simon is reluctantly recruited in the fight against an enemy that remains several steps ahead.

People become pawns, friends become foes and civilisation starts to crumble.

INFECTED CONNECTION is a high-tech thriller in which an unassuming man is plunged into circumstances beyond his comprehension or control. He is led on a journey of thousands of miles, flung into the path of an unfathomable foe, and must ultimately ask himself how far he is willing to go, and how much he will sacrifice, to see a job through.

Genres: Thriller, Science Fiction, Horror, Humor, Adventure

398 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2013

About the author

I am an author, writer, and blogger, living in the UK.

My first novel is Infected Connection, a high-tech tale of paranoia, power struggles and manipulation.

Reviews

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://anaslair.wordpress.com/2015/0...

Premise:

Simon Parfitt is a technician who fixes phones for a living. A new smartphone model has become particularly problematic and so, one day, while trying to figure out why, he makes a very disturbing discovery: while accidentally breaking open the phone's battery, he finds a spider-like thing inside.
What does this mean? How did it get there? Is it organic? Are there more? How exactly do they affect people?
While trying to discover the answer to those questions, he gets involved in a massive, dangerous plot, but one which will also allow him to finally give some meaning to his life.


Writing:

Getting into the book was a bit difficult for me. It started with the first few paragraphs of the first chapter; I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. One minute the main character was home then at the lab then seemed to be home again... I finally got that he was remembering something that had happened before, but I felt the transition could have been done better.

It continued on to a slow placed narrative for the most part, riddled with a lot of technical talk about phones, which I didn't really get, but knew it was necessary to set a sort of scientific basis to what was going on. There were times when the action accelerated; those were fun. But when there were lines and lines of scientific explanations it just lost me.

I could have used smoother transitions between each of the 4 parts, or at least what happened in between should have been backtracked and fully developed as the narrative developed.

At some points the characters lines felt a bit rehearsed.


Plot:

Considering I felt the book had quite a few slow paced moments, I cannot say it completely gripped me. I was disgruntled not only by the scientific talk but also by all the military talk and action, since I would have preferred to be presented with a more personal narrative of events.
I think what dissatisfied me the most was that the plot was obviously moving forward but I could not really tell how. You see, we are presented with a threat that is so unreachable, undecipherable, uncontrollable and omnipotent, that it could not possibly be human. It takes control over people and technology.

There was this scene when Simon was driving and then walking around and every single camera pointed to him that I found particularly daunting. Obviously something big had to be at play here, but what? AI? Aliens? Those options and others were considered.

So there is such an intense atmosphere of fear and unknown (and that was the highlight of the book, to me) and we are told that not a single person could even begin to unravel how, why or what exactly was happening; not even Simon, with all his geeky scientific knowledge.
But suddenly our heroes are being able to handle it. I felt it lacked progression from one state to the next, that there weren't enough explanations for this, at least not one that was conspicuous to me.
They were all running around with clear plans of what to do next and pretty effective tools on how to get the jobs done, but all the time we were told they had no idea how to control or decipher any of it and up until the end of the book I still have no idea of what on earth is going on.
So it sounded too simplistic to me.

Some examples on things I would have liked to have been explained better:

I thought that finding a secret government organization based on a tv show was a bit farfetched. Maybe I missed something, I don't know.

I didn't catch how Max found Simon when he first saved him; I am pretty sure no answer for that was provided. He never told him where he worked, only what he did for a living. And I don't get how he got past Dave the guard.

I felt the government put all their cards on the table way too fast, when first meeting Simon. To my knowledge, they did not know him that well and, besides, he was a civilian. I thought they should have been digging for the entirety of information he had and whatever they knew should have been conveyed on a need-to-know basis for as long as possible, or at least that they should have put up more of a fight before providing it and do it gradually, also to increase the suspense.

When it was first said that everyone's ears were being inspected for bugs, why were we not told what happened when they tried to remove them? Unless they didn't try at all? If so, why not?

Now, related to what I was mentioning earlier about not getting how they got from not understanding the technology at all to being able to do stuff to stop or interfere with it.

Why weren't we given an explanation as to why the cameras they transported via cables worked? Surely whoever jammed the radio signal and all other cameras could take care of those as well? We had been told before that 'they' could control closed system cameras. So it seemed to me that one minute 'they' could do anything and then there were exceptions and I could not tell why.

While on the subject of cameras, we are told the military secured the ones in Simon's workplace building. How? Dave the night guard said he was not able to control them last time he was there. How exactly are the good guys able to control anything if the entity is that powerful?

Maybe I just didn't get all the scientific explanations but it seems to me that thing with Sasha guiding Simon should not have worked. If they could not pinpoint the signal, figure out what or how it was sent, then how the heck could they reroute it?? And even have Sasha talk to Simon? I just don't get it.

The bead. Why on earth was Simon so absolutely certain that it was a listening device and had all the other features that he would have added. I get acting on the safe side, just in case, but he seemed utterly convinced, as if he had proof, which he hadn't.

Characters

I can't say I was a fan of the main character or that he will stay with me for long. I get that the guy is lonely, pretty much the only thing that is going on in his life is his job, but he is good at it and is in a pretty respectable position, since he is in charge of a whole team. He is even told that he is one of the most intelligent people in the whole company at some point, or something like that. So it kind of bothered me that he keeps saying that it was nice to feel important and taken seriously. First with Natalie, then the MI5 in general, then Howelett and Vigo in particular and well, throughout the whole freaking book. It just got annoying at some point.
Max, on the other hand, I did enjoy meeting. He made me laugh on several occasions and, well, he just is who he is.


Final thoughts:

I would have preferred to see a deeper approach to how this whole situation affected normal people instead of so much military stuff.
I did appreciate how they were always one step ahead of the good guys. Simon in particular, poor guy, kept getting played. He is definitely not your average main character. But he grew on me, to a point.

I felt the romance was beyond forced. Again, maybe I missed something, but it seemed to me like he didn't even get much private time with the girl to talk, they just went through some really exciting times together, considering what was at play. And then suddenly he is dreaming of a life with her. Why? Because she held his hand?

Even though I did not really get the closure I would prefer with that ending, it was still an enjoyable read at times, and I did notice titbits throughout the book that made it very interesting: an attempt to link current to past events or inside jokes; humour, mostly by Max; the atmosphere of fear and unknown, amongst others. So I will round the rating up to 3 stars because I do admit bigger fans of this specific genre will pick up on what I obviously missed or did not find clear, and therefore will enjoy it more.


I would like to thank the author for providing a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Infected Connection is a fast paced sci-fi thriller/horror that brings to life the worse nightmare of many (if not all) technology and gadget fans...your phone is not safe. The story begins innocently enough with a new smartphone being recalled due to technical issues but it quickly becomes apparant to technician Simon Parfitt that things are not quite as straight forward as they seem. In fact the problem with the phones combines the stress of technology breaking down (face it, we all stress out when our phones don't work...) with his worse fear and greatest phobia...spiders! And so begins Simon's quest to get the message out to Government and the public in the face of an enemy that can control the very information sources we rely on for our daily dose of news, gossip and procrastination.

This story may be a little quiet to start with Simon being a softly spoken technician, uncertain of himself, what he has found and what to do about it but don't let this fool you, it will pull you in and drag you along staring at your phone with suspicion the entire way (which makes reading on it difficult I can tell you!) and by the end you will find yourself cheering for Simon and his phobia...and Invisible Max (loved I.M!!!). Yes the characters do fit nicely into the sterotypes of socially awkward technician, sexy secretary and homeless man with a shady scary a*se past but why the fix something if it isn't broke (and lets face it, everyone loves the familiarity of a sterotype)? There is something in each of the characters that the reader can relate to and as such this makes them and the story more real and thus more believable (again you will not trust your phone...at least for a while).

Straker has also broken up the out and out action with plenty for the geeks (and inner geeks...admit it, you have one) running through the more technical aspects allowing the characters (and the reader) to catch up with the whys and wherefors adding an extra depth and dimension to the story that could so easily have been just another sci-fi thriller. And then of course there is Simon's phobia, which as a spider lover I just found hysterical (cruel of me, I know), and which added a level of humour, along with Max's superb one-liners (did I mention that I loved Max?!), that the dark side of your funny bone will love. Just read it people!!!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite all the the shortcomings of this book I found it a really entertaining read. Yes, the plot sometimes is a bit jumpy so that it is hard to see why we are in a given scene. Yes, fights are unnecessarily drawn out and don’t add anything. Yes, women are more or less objects.

But with all the crazy twists and turns of the story what’s not to like. What I first thought was annoying and later really liked is the fact that the main motivation of our slightly dumb protagonist is to, well, just get laid. So much for tech sci-fi.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read the kindle version of this (my review) I was looking forward to reading it again in proper book form and I must say I was not disappointed. In fact I'd probably go as far to say that I enjoyed this more the second time around, picking up on the subtleties of the story more than the first time round. And probably because I prefer proper books anyway. Invisible Max is still by far my favourite character with his dry wit, excellent one liners and rather unique take on life, even when things are going to hell in a handbag.

[Anne-Rae Vasquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Infected Connection was a fun read, taking the reader through a maze of "what ifs". I enjoyed the bio-technology terrorist plot driven story with its edgy 'end of the world' excitement. Our unlikely hero, a cell phone engineering technician gets neck deep in helping secret forces try to fight against a mysterious enemy. An enemy that is turning our cell phone network into a method to infect humankind but for what reason?

Readers who enjoy a thrilling adventure with sci-fi (mixed with a bit of modern technology terrorism) will really like 'Infected Connection".